Who Knows Tonight What Will Happen Tomorrow?
by UnicornGiggles
Summary: WARNING: SLASH. Slight Hitchhiker's crossover. Sequel to 'Who Knows This Morning What Will Happen Tonight' Rimmer and Lister's affair is spoilt by a new crewmember.
1. Bored Again, Naturally

_This is a sequel to 'Who knows This Morning What Will Happen Tonight?' There is a slight cross-over with 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' (the book not the $&$££$ movie). This is the second in a trilogy. Have fun!_

**Chapter One: Bored Again, Naturally**

The Jupiter Mining Ship 'Red Dwarf' had been silent and dormant for a very long time. But now with an ecstatic shudder, the engines whirred back into action and a sleepy face appeared upon one of the hundreds of screens featured throughout the ship's body. Cool, fresh oxygen pumped out of the ventilation ducts and each little atom filtered its way through the atmosphere. The face was wide-awake by now, though it still retained its inherently dozy expression. The face was female; pretty with platinum-blonde hair down to where shoulders should have been. She looked around and soon discovered things were not quite as she had left them. Holly was missing something. Using her highly intelligent brain to run through a list of all items aboard the ship (bumping her head on the screen for each number) she quickly worked out that she didn't have a highly intelligent brain after all. In fact, she had less brains than the man who invented the game of Magma Polo. Still, it managed to run for three years as an Olympic sport until all its fans and players died from combustion and various degrees of burns. A skutter dropped a spanner two miles from Holly and the sound eventually echoed up to her. "Blimey," she said out loud, "this place is emptier than an agoraphobic's convention in Central Park." She suddenly realised what was missing. People. 1,168 to be exact. She checked her memory banks. Nope, the final sum had been changed to one human (ish), one hologram, a humanoid cat, a neurotic android and an obnoxious toaster. And they were nowhere to be found.

"Was it something I said?"

* * *

Lister awoke to the familiar random clanking of the pipes above his head. The familiar soft blast of air from Rimmer's nose against his shoulder as he slept soundly behind him. The familiar shuffling about as Kryten prepared the day's laundry. Everything was too damn familiar. Lister needed something new and interesting to happen. Nothing dangerous or life threatening - goodness knows he'd suffered from plenty if that over the years since the rest of the human race was presumably destroyed and he'd ended up stranded in space with an oddity of companions. He just wanted _something_ to happen. Rimmer stirred in his sleep and mumbled something nasty about a guy called Hephaestion. Lister carefully squeezed out from under his arm and reached for his dressing gown. Perhaps something interesting was happening in the cockpit.

Alas, Lister found the Cat filing his fingerclaws and adding a fine coat of clear polish to them to make them pretty. "Smell anything?" Lister asked hopefully. The Cat drew in a quick sniff and shook his head. Lister slumped into his normal seat. "Great. Smegging hell, I'm bored."

"Well, do what you normally do when you're bored, buddy."

"I normally do Rimmer but he's asleep." The Cat made an uncomfortable squeak and returned to neatening his cuticles. Lister tightened his dressing gown and squirmed into a snug position on the hard chair. The universe seemed even more hopelessly vast today than it had yesterday. Life had been more entertaining since Rimmer had received a hard-light form from Legion; there was no doubt about that. But lately time had become stagnant. Lister had a feeling this was about to change.

* * *

Rimmer hunted inside the cupboards for something to disguise the flavour of the stagnant water he had just boiled. Their supplies were tight and most items were completely exhausted and Rimmer felt ever so slightly guilty about eating and drinking when he didn't have to. But sitting and watching the Cat and Lister stuff themselves reminded Rimmer that he was not alive, and that he didn't really exist at all, and that his real self was floating in some other place depending on what religion he believed, and he wasn't sure if he did believe in an afterlife of any kind and that he might have in fact been reincarnated as a rectal wart on a Taiwanese whore, or if he had popped out of existence altogether and nothingness awaited his soul, if he even had a soul in the first place...; and thoughts like that made his head hurt and his stomach queasy.

Rimmer found two boxes labelled mocha and cappuccino. He peeked inside both. Five packets left in the first and six left in the latter. He took one out of the cappuccino. "Now you're even, Steven," Rimmer remarked and laughed, perhaps a little too loudly and perhaps for a little too long.

"You've gone barmy," said Lister, wandering back in after deciding that nothing really was happening in the cockpit.

"Balmy? Like Spain?"

"No, smeghead, _barmy_. Only one 'r'. It means 'nuts'."

"Actually, my definition of balmy is spelt with an 'l'. Now who's stupid?" Rimmer scowled as Lister shrugged off the attempt to rouse his temper. Which was a shame because Rimmer thought some of the best sex they ever had was when they were pissed off with each other. "What's wrong with you lately? You've been so miserable."

"I'm just fed up with nothing happening."

"Personally I'm glad of the rest from dashing about. Running away from supernovas and blood-sucking giant insects. Ugh!"

"Mm."

"I don't see how you can be bored. I've offered to talk you through my war memorabilia collection."

Lister looked up and said very clearly, "Rimmer, I will _never_ be that bored."


	2. Sanity Test

**Chapter Two: Sanity Test**

It was probably Kryten's imagination, but he was fairly, almost, 100 percent sure that the washing machine had broken down due to suspicious circumstances. True, his only evidence that it was not simply a technical fault was a large mallet embedded in its side, but the idea that someone would destroy a washing machines, _his_ washing machine, was ludicrous. Who could possibly benefit from the crew having dirty clothes? "Now I shall to wash all this laundry by hand," Kryten sighed. "I shall have to wash them all by myself... It'll take hours. Oh happy day!" Kryten squealed with joy and gathered up the clothes. "Well, I hope the tumble drier doesn't break as well. Then I shall have to stand around with Mr Cat's hairdryer all day trying to dry them. Now that would indeed be a travesty."

"Kryten, what are you mumbling about?" Rimmer scoffed from the doorway, supping his coffee. "You broke the washing machine on purpose."

"I'm not sure what you are insinuating, sir."

"I saw you! You came down here this morning and whacked the washing machine to death so that you could have a few extra hours doing chores. You really are pathetic."

Kryten held his head high to retain a little of his dignity and answered stiffly, "Well that is quite impossible, sir. I would never do such a thing. I'm insulted that you think I am a one-dimensional android with a laundry fetish. I was probably just standby-walking." Rimmer paused in mid-sip. "Standby-walking. _Standby-walking_?"

"Why are you drinking that bean-based beverage?"

"Don't change the subject, Kryten."

"Sir, I must protest. Supplies are low enough already. You can't even digest it. It just returns again intact."

"Exactly. Then anyone who wants to re-drink it is quite welcome to." Kryten screwed up his face at Rimmer. "Surely not?"

" Perfectly sanitary. I haven't heard them complain so far."

Another face distortion, followed by a groan, "Oh sir... Mr Lister is having a bad influence on you. You are becoming increasingly crude and he in turn is becoming sarcastic. You are adopting each other's nasty habits."

"I don't have any nasty habits. Not now and not ever." Kryten looked around cautiously. He crept over to Rimmer and told him in a frightened whisper, "You don't floss anymore. You just run the brush over your gums and swirl a bit of mouthwash around and you're done. What happened to brushing up and down for exactly one minute and twenty-three seconds followed by two rinses, a gargle and a swirl? It was one of the only things admirable about you, sir. Your habitual attention to cleanliness."

"Well I'm tired in the evening; I don't have the time anymore."

"And your diet, sir. You used to exercise regularly and eat fresh holo-greens." Kryten stopped and scurried away as the Cat wandered in with a howl of delight. "Done," he said triumphantly and handed over a sheet of blank paper to Kryten. Kryten admired the paper at arm's length. "Sir, we are going to have to teach you to write one day. Engaging nasal sensors."

"What's that?"

"My sanity test."

"My god... that time again?" Rimmer moaned and handed the Cat his coffee. "Thanks, goalpost-head. Hmm, doesn't taste like it usually does." Kryten frowned at the cup but said nothing as he handed the Cat the paper. "Perfect again, Mr Cat."

"Is this really necessary every month?"

"Certainly Mr Rimmer. Your job on this ship is to keep Mr Lister in a state of sanity. If you are incapable of performing this task then there is no reason to keep you online. The Cat and I agreed it was only fair to have sanity tests for us all. The slightest lack of mental instability could put us all at risk, especially if it is Mr Lister.."

"Not to mention that if Lister fails the test, I get switched off."

"Hey, that thought never crossed our minds, buddy. I just want to make sure I don't go nuts and do something stupid."

"Like wear an 'Emo' band t-shirt or pink flip-flops." The Cat looked at Rimmer in utter horror. "Don't even joke about that."

* * *

"OK, sir. This test shouldn't take more than a few minutes." Lister nodded at Kryten as compliantly as he could. Which was difficult when he was on the final boss of an emulation of an old computer game named 'Starwing'. "Now then sir, question one: What colour is an orange?"

"Can't I go first Kryten? You won't get an answer out of him when he's like that."

"Mr Lister, your answer?" Lister howled in disappointment as his tiny arrow-shaped ship crashed and burnt. The hologram and mechanoid watched Lister as he ranted and screamed and came up with a thousand insults suitable for degrading a talking fox and his animal comrades. "Right, what did you want?" he said finally, cracking open a beer.

"What colour is an orange, sir?"

"Orange you dingbat, why?" Lister laughed. Kryten nodded and jotted down the answer. "Mr Rimmer?"

"It depends on the type of orange and the lighting."

"Oh smeg, this is one of those sanity tests, innit? I hate these." Rimmer smiled at the grumbling Lister. It wasn't very often he got to show off his superior intellect. Not since the terrible Trivial Pursuit incident. He was coughing up pie slices for a week. One even shot out of his left nostril whilst he was laughing at Lister when he ran over the Cat's foot on his lunar buggy. "Next question: what day is it?"

"Today?"

"And Mr Rimmer?"

"Time is irrelative as we are in deep space, but according to the calendar it is 'Sanity Test Day'.

"And finally, who are you?

"Oh I get it," Lister grinned, "who I am, if I do indeed exist, can be categorised into several answers. The first being my species - human or homo sapiens; secondly my handle of David Lister, which is relative of who raised me - David being my uncle's name and Lis-"

"Sir, you have gone mad!"

"What?"

"The answers are relative to your personality. I expect that kind of anal retentive answer from Mr Rimmer, and the Cat would say "I'm me - if I was anyone else there'd be no point in living because I'd be ugly!" and from you I expect something obvious and unimaginative. Oh dear, oh dear, you are ill..." Kryten scribbled his worried thoughts down. Lister sighed and scratched his life-weary head. He hoped Rimmer would say something to make Kryten realise what an idiot he was being. No such luck. "Kryten, man, stop it. I'm perfectly sane. And apart from the urge to throw Rimmer into the garbage disposal now and then, I have no intention of putting the crew in danger."

"I'll remember that comment tonight," Rimmer growled. Lister kissed the air at him and threw a mouthful of beer down his throat. Kryten gathered the notes together, and with a false sigh went to do the washing up.


End file.
